Elsa Houghton - artist and illustrator
Born in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Spent childhood in the heart of the city living along the river Maas, influencing future works with recurring themes of water, travel, migration and flight.
Frequently, the ideas for these paintings have come from the written word, newspaper articles or books.
A lasting influence is seeing the works by Pieter Breughel and Hieronymus Bosch 'live' when I was 5 or 6 yrs old.
I always try to create images of beauty that say something about the human condition and the world we live in.
Through exploring colour values and relationships, harmonies and contrasts, I aim to create beautiful work.
For me, composition is important whether making abstract or figurative works; it is always a balancing game of pattern, rhythm, proportions, divisions and colour.
Studied Fine Art & Design at the Academy in Rotterdam and Illustration at Wolverhampton University.
Lectured on the Illustration course at Wolverhampton University for 11 years.
My work has been exhibited and collected in Britain and abroad.
The first show was in 1969 at the Design Studio 397 in Amsterdam with 2 fellow students. There were 15 exhibitions in between.
'Illustration Alumni Exhibition' at the Millennium City Gallery, Wolverhampton in November 2008.